142 PROFESSOR HULL, LI.D., F.R.S. 
connected by several high roads with Damascus, with the 
cities of the Persian Gulf, with the harbour of Aila, and with 
the coast of the Mediterranean, and thus with Heypt, Pales- 
tine, and Tyre. We may gather from Strabo that spices. 
landed at Aila in. the ships of the Minei and Gerrareei, 
probably from the district of Southern Arabia known as 
“the Yemen,” were taken to Petra, and exchanged for the 
products of the Phoenicians. At some very early period— 
perhaps in Apostolic times—Christianity was introduced into 
Arabia Petreea; we might even hazard the conjecture that 
this event took place through the agency of St. Paul himself, 
who, as we know from the Hpistle to the Galatians, went into 
Arabia after his conversion, and thence returned to Damascus. 
It is not improbable that he took advantage of this opportunity 
for visiting the capital of the country, and preaching to the 
inhabitants the Gospel he had himself received. However 
this may be, about the beginning of the fifth century, 
according to Reland,* the region extending from the borders 
of Arabia to those of Syria, and constituting the eccle- 
siastical province of Palestine, was divided into Palestina 
Prima, Secunda, and Tertia, the metropolis of the first being 
Jerusalem; of the second, Scythopolis; and of the third, 
Petra.t In this sense, Eusebius speaks of Petra as being a 
city of Palestine, at which time it was the seat of a bishop 
who had the oversight of the Christian populations ; and there 
can be little doubt that during the fourth and fifth centuries 
Christianity had been embraced by a large proportion of the 
population of Arabia Petraea, especially amongst the more 
settled inhabitants. This brings us to the consideration of 
the religious history of the people of this region. 
Going back to the earliest ages of Arabian history, it seems 
clear that the Semitic races, occupying the region between the 
Caucasus on the north and Southern Arabia on the south, had 
dispossessed the prehistoric races, whose remains we recognise 
in the dolmens and stone circles which are so abundant in the 
table-lands of Moab and to the east of the Jordan valley. 
According to Le Bont, Arab tradition points to two divisions 
of the Arab race; the first descended from Kachtan (the 
Joktan of the Bible), who now occupy the fruitful district of 
the Yemen, in South-Western Arabia; and the second from 
* Palestina ex Monumentis veteribus illustrata (Nuremberg, 1616). 
+ In a MS. in the library of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, a fourth 
Province, that of Bostron or Arabia, is mentioned. Palmer’s Desert of the 
Exodus, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 551. 
t Dr, Gustave Le Bon, La Civilisation des Arabs (1884). 
